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Electrokinetic detection and separation of living algae in a microfluidic chip: implication for ship’s ballast water analysis

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Abstract

Detecting living algae from treated ship’s ballast water is an important task for port state control (PSC) under the requirement of the International Ballast Water Convention. In this paper, electrokinetic detection and separation of living algae from NaClO- and UV-treated ship’s ballast water in a microfluidic chip are presented. The electrokinetic movement of algae in a straight poly ethylene glycol (PEG)–modified PDMS microchannel filled with 10% PEG solution was measured by using an optical microscope. The experimental results show that the moving velocity of dead algae is lower by more than 80% in comparison with living algae. The decreased velocity is larger for larger dead algae and the velocity is decreased to zero for dead algae larger than 6 μm in diameter. A curve was obtained to evaluate the vitality of algae with similar moving velocity but different sizes. Electrokinetic separation of living algae from a mixture sample in a straight channel was also achieved. The method presented in this paper provides a moving velocity–based approach for quickly evaluating the living status of algae in treated ship’s ballast water.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors wish to thank the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51679023, 51979019), Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program and Liaoning Nature Science Foundation (2019MS027) to Y. Song, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (3132019336), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through a research grant (RGPIN-03622) to D. Li.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China

    Yongxin Song, Zhen Li, Junyan Zhang & Zhijian Liu

  2. China Classification Society Guangzhou Branch, Guangzhou, 519000, China

    Angran Feng

  3. Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Dongqing Li

Authors
  1. Yongxin Song
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  4. Junyan Zhang
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Contributions

Yongxin Song: conceptualization, methodology, writing - original draft.

Zhen Li: data curation, formal analysis.

Angran Feng: data curation, formal analysis.

Junyan Zhang: data curation, formal analysis.

Zhijian Liu: data curation, formal analysis.

Dongqing Li: supervision, project administration. writing - review and editing.

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Correspondence to Dongqing Li.

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Song, Y., Li, Z., Feng, A. et al. Electrokinetic detection and separation of living algae in a microfluidic chip: implication for ship’s ballast water analysis. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 22853–22863 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12315-5

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